


Learning to Fly

by Cottontail



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: First Time, M/M, Pre-Slash, Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-09
Updated: 2011-04-09
Packaged: 2017-10-17 19:45:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/180543
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cottontail/pseuds/Cottontail
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Atlantis is destroyed John has a midlife crisis. Rodney pulls him away from the SGC and takes him home for the holidays where John learns life’s adventures are more than just flying cool aircraft and shooting aliens.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Learning to Fly

**Author's Note:**

> Spoiler warnings for SGA season 3 episodes – “McKay and Mrs. Miller” and “The Return pt. 1"  
> Originally posted on LJ - [Learning to Fly](http://cottontail.livejournal.com/15722.html)

This is when everything changes for John. Years later he’ll look back and think it may have been a whole series of small events, but right now when it’s happening, he believes this is the moment. This is when he’s finished with the SGC and all its bureaucracy.

It’s been months since the eviction from Atlantis and months more since they destroyed it with one nuclear warhead. He’s been at the SGC with a mediocre team under his command and few, if any, real missions handed to them. It’s as if the brass doesn’t even know he’s available, despite many loud demands to the contrary in General Landry’s office. He’s no longer the giant whale in an ocean; now he’s a tiny fish in a new pond. Actually, not even a fish. He’s really more like one of those little snails that sticks to the side of the aquarium and sucks crap off the glass.

So here he is, in a metal fold-out chair, with a group of young Airmen, watching slides and listening to a lecture from Captain-something-or-other about new gliders the SGC has recently acquired. It’s simple stuff. He could fly one now with just a glance at the blueprint. He could give the lecture to these recruits about how to soar at just the right altitude and speed in order to stay under radar and still manage to take out a dozen enemy flights before detection. Instead his name is on the mandatory training roster and it’s not an administrative snafu. He’s actually required to sit through this and pretend he’s interested.

Of course his mind wanders. How can it not?

He and Rodney have been sleeping together for less than a month now. He’s still getting over the shock of what they did to Atlantis. He’s still painfully aware of being homesick for Pegasus, and bitterly lonely, missing the only family he’d had in many, many years.

He stares at the flight pattern slides on the screen and does his best not to slouch too much on the chair, while a young lieutenant across the room asks really stupid questions about wingspan. John attempts to rationalize how sleeping with Rodney was inevitable.

Perhaps he can blame the others. Elizabeth never talks to him any more, Carson took a transfer to a research hospital in Tennessee, Ronon and Teyla are in another galaxy. Even Major Lorne is out on missions with another SGC team and very rarely do they meet.

For weeks and then months John tried to pretend he would adjust to being here. He would get past the longing for ocean tides, the hum of Atlantis just under his subconscious, familiar faces of other expedition members always present at every hour of the day and night. This was normal for the military. You get transferred and you deal with it. How many times had he gone through this as a child, with his father’s constant revolving duty stations?

After Atlantis was finally destroyed, there came a point when he thought he might actually have a nervous breakdown. It had been a particularly dull day at the shooting range with his new team. He returned to the SGC to find SG-1 huddled around a table in the mess hall, sharing Jello and joking about a recent mission. He went home that night and briefly considered the quickest methods of suicide.

Rodney unwittingly nixed that train of thought with a single phone call. “I’m flying in tomorrow. Colonel Carter has some project she actually acknowledged needing my help on.”

The following night he took Rodney to dinner at a local steak house, where they proceeded to drink far too many Black Russians and made increasingly stupid and lewd jokes about the bull horns sticking out of the walls and the boots hanging from the rafters.

They returned to John’s place and from there the only thing he remembers clearly is Rodney stopping him, half-way through the act itself, with breathless words of, “no, wait… what are we _doing_? We can’t do _this_. This is so wrong.”

John almost laughed, because it’s way too late to stop when your clothes are strewn around the room and you’re both naked and wrapped around one another in the middle of the bed. He kissed Rodney to make him shut up, swore he didn’t care anymore about right and wrong because nothing mattered now.

This was new and different. These were rules he’d never dared to break before, a rush of adrenaline they could share. And of course they were good at it, because they had worked so well together before, could read one another’s cues and reactions, knew where the next moves and touches should be made, despite the alcohol and any first time jitters. It was almost like learning to fly again… only different.

He’d been lonely, so very lonely. Rodney was too, but wouldn’t admit it. He called John every night to ask how his day was and make sure he hadn’t been sent out on any life-threatening missions that might require him to leave Area 51 and rescue John.

Sometimes John wondered if Rodney was the reason General Landry never sent him out on real missions.

A week after that first night together Rodney returned to Area 51. An entire month passed, agonizingly slow, before he came back to work on another SGC project. Now he’s been here two weeks and his toothbrush is firmly ensconced next to John’s, in the little cup on the bathroom sink. They’re together every free minute and John’s given up all pretense of pretending he’s not perfectly happy to eat meals in the mess hall with Rodney instead of his own team.

They’re all but living together and the entire base is aware yet not discussing it because no one wants to out John or Rodney. Besides, there’s that whole “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” thing to cling to. Yet it wasn’t until this morning that John finally realized he was actually in a relationship with this other man.

He’d wandered into the kitchen after a shower to find Rodney leaning against the counter, talking on his cell.

“I’m just asking you to call back… We’re worried, Elizabeth.” He hung up and lightly tossed the phone on the counter. It glanced off the coffee pot and spun a few times.

“She never calls. I think she blames us for…” He waved a hand and trailed off.

“We had no choice,” John said for the hundredth time, still trying to convince himself.

“I know that.” Rodney scowled at the floor and for some reason this morning he looked very vulnerable to John. “God, I just… I hate it here,” he whispered. “I want to go home.”

John crossed the kitchen and held him before he could think about what he was doing. Really he’s not touchy feely like that but he knew what Rodney was feeling. The pining to be complete and needed again, to be part of something that is a once in a lifetime experience.

“Don’t go back,” John whispered as they pressed their foreheads together. “Come work at the SGC.”

Rodney scoffed. “You know they won’t give me that position anymore than they will let me near the Puddle Jumper.” It’s a sore topic and John regretted bringing it up. But the thought of another month or more with no familiar faces was almost too much to bear.

Rodney kissed him. “But hey, you could take leave and come with me to my sister’s for the holidays.” He smiled in invitation; the ‘I know things you really want to know also’ smile that John has serious trouble resisting.

And now John’s been invited to the relatives’ for the holidays and it’s officially a relationship.

He didn’t answer right away, just told Rodney he would think about it.

“Shouldn’t you be taking notes, Sir?” a small Lieutenant whispers – interrupting John’s thoughts and nudging him with a bony elbow. He bites the inside of his mouth and really tries not to look irritated or stuck up or do anything that Rodney wouldn’t hesitate doing himself at the suggestion he should take notes.

“I think I’ll be fine, thanks,” he mutters with a very tight smile at the kid. The Lieutenant shrugs and smirks at the guy next to him. They have no idea who he is, what he’s done, where he’s been and how absolutely discouraged he is at this moment.

He wants to scream.

Instead he stands, in the middle of the lecture, and walks out. Captain-something-or-other yells about it being a mandatory class but he’s already out the door and heading down the halls towards the science labs.

Rodney looks up at the sound of his steps. He’s in a white lab coat; a laptop is on the table before him, reflecting blue light beautifully in his eyes. Words don’t come to mind so John just stands and stares at him.

Lt. Colonel Carter is in the corner of the room, working on a crystal structure. She’s watching; John can sense it but doesn’t really acknowledge her. He just chews his lower lip and gives Rodney a barely perceptible nod. In his head it should translate to, ‘yes I’ll go with you to your sister’s for Christmas.’

And Rodney, genius that he is, gets it. He smiles, sits up a little straighter and says, “Right.”

John wants to kiss him. He makes a rapid about-face and leaves the labs for General Landry’s office and a Request for Leave form.

Oddly, walking out on a flight class was not the way to win General Landry’s confidence or a Request for Leave. John spends less than 10 seconds considering his options.

\---

A little boy is across the aisle from them, looking very small in the plush first-class seat. His name is Michael. John knows this because the flight attendants keep saying his name to him as they pass by with carts of alcohol or tiny packages of pretzels. They offer him a dozen pillows and stick a little flight pin on his collar with a tag that says, “My name is Michael”, his plane ticket and transfer info clipped under it. Rodney points out that Michael is clearly not going to get lost because the entire damned first-class knows who he is and where he’s going.

The trip is surreal to John. It’s very different to be on a plane he’s not flying and even more so to have civilian passengers on every side, little beeping seatbelt signs flashing and turbulence that he can’t control. Rodney is equally restless with it all but deals well. He mentions something about inertial dampeners then promptly falls asleep when they reach cruising altitude.

John watches Michael play with action figures and drink from a juice box.

He tries to remember being that small. His mother was still around when he was that little. In fact, one of his first memories is of being on a plane with her on one side and his father on the other. He remembers her trying to distract him with books that had pictures of trains in them and his father’s voice droning on above him. He’d been air-sick, had actually puked in one of the oh-so-convenient barf-bags airlines provide. His mother held him on her lap and pressed a cool cloth to his head, promised they would land soon and please don’t cry. His father had glared and told her to stop coddling because it was just turbulence and nothing more.

They have a layover in Chicago. While Rodney takes a bathroom break and goes to peruse the magazine stands, John uses the opportunity to make a call to Elizabeth. He stands before a giant window, waiting for their flight to prepare for boarding. Planes slide past the window and cruise around the tarmac, then glide up into gathering clouds. Families with crying babies and grumpy adults crowd around the ticket desks and stare up at arrival/departure screens. The air smells of stale coffee, bad Chinese food and popcorn from a nearby kiosk.

John thinks he might throw up.

The line rings at least ten times before going to voice-mail. Elizabeth’s familiar greeting answers, “Hello, this is Dr. Weir. I’m sorry I’m not available; please leave a message and I will return your call as soon as I can.” Beeeeeeep.

John sighs heavily. “Elizabeth! You need to answer your GOD DAMNED PHONE!” An old woman nearby glares in disapproval; some teenage girls giggle and whisper.

John slides around a corner to a less populated area. “Look… I just want to know that you’re still alive. You know we had no choice in what we did. There was _nothing_ we could do, Elizabeth. If they had managed to track back to Earth from Atlantis…” He trails off, because that’s classified and he’s in public. A group of business men speed-walk past, pulling luggage on wheels behind them; a voice nags over the intercom that their flight is ready to board. “Why won’t you just pick up, Elizabeth? I could seriously use someone to talk to right now. I think I hate the SGC; they don’t trust me. General Landry keeps shuffling me around to stupid assignments. I suppose going AWOL isn’t helping things. They won’t let Rodney work on the Puddle Jumper project, can you _believe_ that? I haven’t heard from Carson since he left for that research position, Rodney and I are fucking, I think I’m going to resign and buy a house someplace far away from humanity…. Shit… this line isn’t secure. Elizabeth don’t listen to this. God I hate this. Look, I’m fine, just having a small nervous breakdown here.” Rodney appears and points at his watch then the doorway to the boarding airline. John nods. “I have to go. I’ll be in Toronto at Rodney’s sister’s place so… call me because I’ll probably be clinically insane after the first day… Bye.”  
\--

"I broke the rule again," Rodney mutters. John glances back at him as they leave customs and head for baggage claim at the Toronto airport.

"What?" John’s preoccupied with his phone. There are 10 missed calls, all from the SGC. He turns it off again and stuffs it in his pocket.

"The rule, the rule - always bring a present for the kid." He's patting down his pockets, obviously trying to think of something that might satisfy the rule.

"I'm sure she'll get over it." John thinks Rodney probably should have remembered to bring some small gift, actually. "Hey, I broke the rule too. We break rules together; it's fun," he tries to reassure.

"In this case, not so much."

John's still edgy but holding it all together because Rodney clearly needs him to. Rodney's like a tidal wave of nerves about to hit the shores. It's a familiar thing that John hasn't seen since Atlantis and he feels guilty for wanting to bask in it. He should be wishing he could calm him somehow. Maybe try and drag him to the nearest men’s room where he can suck him off in a stall, drain some of the tension. But there's no way that's going to happen now.

"Rodney, breathe," he says as they enter the open air of the airport. Families are pushing to meet visiting relatives. People are hugging all around them, exclaiming over the growth of children and asking how the flight was; all the usual holiday activity for an airport anywhere in the world.

A small projectile tosses herself in Rodney's general direction and wraps around his legs with a giggle. John hopes this is Madison because some poor parent is going to be very embarrassed if it isn't.

"Uh... Hi." Rodney pats her head and she beams up at him. Clearly she doesn't know him very well because she's trying to climb up his torso, indicating she wishes to be held. "I broke the rule again," Rodney grumbles and awkwardly picks her up.

She's digging through his coat pockets, "But you could buy me something later, right?" She has a little lisp and John really tries not to find that completely cute, because he doesn't want to get attached to this kid. She looks at him with familiar blue eyes and says, "You can too."

"Madison!" Jeanie and her husband are before them, both looking embarrassed by their child's forward behavior. Jeanie hugs Rodney briefly as she takes her daughter from him. "I swear she only does that to you. We didn't raise a scavenger."

John gives them his most friendly of smiles. "I'm used to it.” He glances at Rodney.

"What does that mean?" Rodney demands.

"Nothing." He holds a hand out to the husband. "John Sheppard."

"Hey, Caleb." He has a firm shake and looks directly in John's eyes, which is a good sign. "Welcome to Canada."

\---

If for no other reason than this moment alone, John is glad he agreed to come.

During the drive from the airport they stop at a 24-hour grocery store to pick up breakfast supplies. Jeanie and Caleb take off for the produce section Rodney and John head for baked goods with Madison in tow; apparently she’s bonded to Rodney, which no one can explain because he’s done nothing to deserve her affections.

The florescent lighting is vaguely reminiscent of Atlantis and the aisles are empty, but for the occasional old woman or drunk couple. They’re on the cookie aisle; Madison has taken it upon herself to grab a bag of animal crackers, which she hugs to her chest. John’s sure at least half of them have lost their heads and legs in the crush but leaves her to it. She isn’t his kid and he only met her less than 30 minutes ago.

He and Rodney are just trying to get over their astonishment at the dazzling array of cookies before them when Madison suddenly gets really into the 80’s Greatest Hits being piped in for the patrons’ shopping pleasure - Madonna’s “Holiday” to be precise. She’s totally got the moves down, too. She pirouettes around Rodney, still clinging to her animal crackers, then does some particularly impressive jumping and bouncing, pony-tail flying around her face and little purple boots clicking on the floor in a pretty decent time with the music. She’s a flurry of raspberry-pink coat and fuzzy purple scarf. She’s singing the lyrics wrong, mostly just catches the “Holiday” part, but hey - she’s the most amusing thing John has seen in many, many months.

Coupled with Rodney standing stone-still in baffled shock as he watches, John's amusement threatens to burst. Rodney looks from her to him and becomes completely flustered. “Make her stop,” he hisses.

“Why?” John snorts with laughter. “She’s cool!”

She tries to drag Rodney into it but he’s not going there. She bounces with from the Oreos down to the fat-free Snackwells and back again. She squeals with excitement and Rodney grudgingly smiles as she takes his hand.

The song ends much to Rodney’s relief. “Impressive.” He smirks at John and they head off towards the dairy aisle with a four-year-old and a bag of smashed cookies.

“You know you liked it.” John grins.

\---

“So,” Rodney says in the darkness of their room. “SGC has been calling me like every five minutes.”

“Oh?” The bed is large and comfortable and the room is dark with just a slice of moonlight lying across the quilted covers. There was not a single bit of awkwardness in the fact that they are sharing a room or a bed. Jeanie gave the grand tour then tossed them in the room and left them to it.

“Hmm, seems they don’t know where you are and apparently you’ve left without authorization… dereliction of duty, something like that.”

“Huh.” He knew this conversation was coming, because of course SGC is going to call Rodney to ask where John is. “So, you told them I’m safe and sound?”

“I told them I didn’t know where you were.”

“You didn’t have to lie.”

“No, I didn’t and I don’t know why I did. I’m sure they didn’t believe me anyway, you know I suck at lying. Why the hell didn’t you just tell me you didn’t get the leave request?”

“Because I wanted to come and I’m fucking sick of being treated like a new recruit!” Rodney shushes him because even though Madison and her parents are up on the second floor and they are on the first, he’s still paranoid about disturbing them.

“John.” Rodney sighs. He lays there and waits for a lecture of some sort to follow, but it’s just his name. Soon familiar soft snoring drifts from the other side of the bed.

He’s still trying to get used to Rodney calling him by his first name now. The first time he did it was a few days after they gave up the means to getting a nuke under the shields of Atlantis. Landry called only John and Rodney into the SGC and informed them they would not be leaving the conference room until they provided him with the method to destroy the city.

Rodney knew how to do it of course. They didn’t need to study maps or perform any great technical feat. But he wouldn’t give it up to them and John wasn’t going to order him, not that Rodney would listen to his orders anyway.

For hours they sat in the conference room and ran over strategies to avoid this. In the end none of them were feasible. Landry was determined and insistent that his orders were very clear; they came from General O’Neill himself. Early evening turned into early a.m. hours and they remained across from one another at the table, tired, hungry, and defeated. When Landry came in for the tenth time they gave him what he wanted. Minutes later the plans were transferred to the Daedalus and they were dismissed.

John remembers Rodney looking particularly pale and beaten across the table from him and he’s sure he didn’t look any better.

Neither of them slept for the next two days. He’d see Rodney in the labs and the mess hall and he was hollow-eyed, pasty and badly in need of a shave. When they received word Atlantis was destroyed, Rodney tore apart John’s office. Which was fine, because he really hadn’t unpacked yet anyway.

“I’m sorry, John,” Rodney whispered later on, as they sat in the infirmary, getting his hand stitched up from a cut received during his tirade.

“We had no choice,” John repeated his new personal catch phrase. The one he’s said to himself every single day since.

\---

John wakes up to muffled voices in the kitchen, the smell of coffee and the shower running in the bathroom off their guest room. It’s all very domestic and he feels out of place here. He’s not related to these people, yet he’s here. He doesn’t have to get up and put on a uniform, check on his team and report into General Landry. He doesn’t have to go sit in on repetitive classes or stare at the walls in his office, waiting for lunch to come around.

“Hey,” Jeanie greets when he finally emerges into the kitchen after his own shower. “Let me get you some coffee.”

“I can get it.”

“No-no-no, I’ve got it.” She’s insanely like Rodney yet not. John remembers being fascinated by this when she was visiting Atlantis. He wonders if Caleb thinks the same of Rodney.

The kitchen is bright, flowers and plants all over, colorful scribbled drawings stuck to the fridge with alphabet magnets. It smells like cinnamon and sunlight. John sits at the little island table and she places coffee, sliced fruit and cinnamon rolls before him with a smile, then leans against the other side, her own cup clasped in her hands.

She stares at him. He returns the look as he spoons sugar into his coffee. Something is in her eyes and he can’t read it. If this was Rodney he might be able to identify it but women are always more difficult to read. He gives up trying and breaks the staring contest first.

“Mer and Caleb took Madison to the nursery to find a live Christmas tree. I promised Maddy we would make sugar cookies today and she insists that you help. So, that’s it - you’re helping with sugar cookies and you can’t argue because she throws a wicked tantrum and you do not want to witness that.”

John blinks. “Cookies are good.” He’s never made cookies; this might be a disaster waiting to happen.

They spend a companionable hour chatting about nothing at all important. Rodney and Caleb return with a potted, midsized tree. Madison trots into the kitchen with a bag clasped in her furry mittens. “We bought new ornaments. Uncle picked them out.”

John attempts to look suitably impressed. “Oooh,” Jeanie says, taking the bag and pulling out balls of tissue. John helps her unwrap the ornaments and soon they have every currently known planet of the solar system before them, including some moons, in glittering bulbs. Madison names them each as they appear and Jeanie helps her along. Saturn, Mars, Jupiter, Earth…

“Pluto?” John asks, holding up a glittering blue bulb.

“No, that’s the moon Titan from Saturn,” Madison corrects in a sing-song voice, one finger raised at him.

John stares then smiles at her. “So it is.”

She tilts her head back in a very familiar gesture of flirting and grins at him. John’s at a loss for how to react.

He looks to Rodney, who’s leaning against the doorframe intently watching John. “What?” Rodney asks. “I didn’t teach her the names, Mr. Mensa.”

\---

The cookies turn out better than John expected. The whole day passes from one warm moment to the next and he can almost convince himself he’s perfectly fine with this. He’s not at all having thoughts of escape.

That night he has a nightmare about his mother. The one where he’s sleeping and his father comes in, wakes him up and tells him she has died, that they did everything they could to save her but she’s gone now and it’s just them. John tries to deny this is happening, tries to tell his father to leave him alone. He gets out of bed and walks around the empty house but his father follows him into each room until John’s frantic because he can’t stand to keep hearing those words about his mother.

He wakes up, aware that he’s been clenching his teeth and it’s given him a headache. Rodney is sitting up in the bed, just watching him in the darkness. “You were crying.” His voice is unusually expressionless, as if he’s afraid to introduce any further emotion into the moment.

“Sorry,” John whispers, wipes at his eyes and sits up too. “Bad dream.”

There’s a small TV across the room on one of the shelves. Rodney turns it on with a remote and flips through channels, gets frustrated with the lack of choices and settles for an old Japanese movie about a giant man-eating thing that is not Godzilla. John slides back down in bed and stares at the screen. “Do you want to go back? They’ll come for you otherwise,” Rodney says.

“No - maybe.” The giant man-eating thing on television pulls up some trees and people stand and scream at it but don’t run; abruptly a commercial for an air purifier interrupts the action.

“My mother died when I was eight,” John blurts out.

“Umm…” Rodney stares at him then turns the TV off. “Sorry.”

“I don’t remember her very well. I try to sometimes but she’s just gone. I remember the idea of her and the feeling of her… you know?”

“Not really.” This makes John smile. Rodney’s best and worst asset is that he’s honest 24/7.

Possibly it’s the bad dream, but he’s feeling a need to talk, and so keeps going. “What are we doing?”

“What?”

John doesn’t repeat the question; he knows Rodney understands what he was asking.

After just a little bit of fidgeting he answers, “We’re sleeping together. What do you think we’re doing?”

He reaches up and pulls Rodney down closer to him. They kiss for several long minutes.

“I think I deserted my post so I could spend Christmas with you and your family. I think it’s gone past sleeping together.”

Rodney flails one hand in the air then drops it with a great sigh and presses closer to John. “It’s your fault. You started it.”

Out in the living room a clock chimes the hour. 2:00 a.m.

\---

The next afternoon the family heads out to a neighborhood winter fair. The air has a biting chill to it; caramel corn, candy apples and cotton candy float on the wind. It’s crowded with parents pushing strollers full of runny-nosed children through colorful displays of balloons, flowers and stuffed toys.

Upon arrival Jeanie and Caleb push Madison on John and Rodney, comment about meeting later at the Santa display then make a run for it.

John stands with Rodney and a very excited Madison holding each of their hands, bouncing between them.

“So…” Rodney stares at him.

“They ditched us.” John doesn’t know why he’s shocked. They must have needed a break from the kid and saw the opportunity. But it indicates they trust Rodney and him to care for their only offspring, which is slightly terrifying.

“What clued you in?” Rodney scowls at him.

There’s no chance to freak about this because Madison has all sorts of suggestions for things to do in order to pass time. They just trail her, tossing money at concession stands, tickets for the children’s rides, and several games in which she picks rubber duckies out of a tub and wins plastic jewelry. Then John discovers some target practice games and wins every single one with not a single missed shot. That’s how Madison ends up with a giant stuffed goldfish and an extremely sparkly princess tiara.

They make their way to the ice rink and watch people twirl around on rented skates. Rodney makes snarky comments when they fall on their asses and Madison snickers at the jokes in a very McKay fashion.

They grudgingly agree to rent some skates for Madison. She toddles out onto the ice with promises to stay right in front of them and not venture out into the actual revolving crowd of skaters.

In hindsight, one of them should have gone out there with her.

John sees it coming but is powerless to stop it. A boy several years older than Madison flies across the ice in a perfect beeline for their happy little charge and there’s no stopping that kind of momentum, though Rodney makes a valiant effort with many interesting curse words John didn’t know he had in his vocabulary.

She’s flat on her face with a bloody lip in less than a second. Never in his entire life has John known such an instantaneous flood of guilt and horror. Not even when they finally gave up the plans for getting a nuke under Atlantis’ shielding.

He jumps the wall of the rink and Rodney’s already on the other kid’s parents, yelling threatening words mixed with impressive hand gestures that he’s only ever used on Zelenka when some project went spectacularly wrong on Atlantis. The boy’s parents don’t know how to react to such a heated browbeating. John thinks they’re lucky it’s Rodney who got to them first because his immediate instinct is to rip the entrails out of their kid and hand them to them on a platter.

Madison is in shock for the first 10 seconds, sees the blood on the ice, tastes it in her mouth and bursts into one high-pitched howl of fear and hurt. John pulls her into his coat, stands and shoves his way out of the ogling crowd that’s gathering.

Rodney gives up on the parents and follows. “Oh my God, we ruin everything! No wonder no one trusts us.” Obviously the guilt has hit him now, too. “We’re so _screwed_!”

“Don’t freak on me. I need you to stay calm for her,” John hisses back at him.

“Right, right.” Rodney takes action, as he always does under duress, and looks for a concession stand.

John sits in some spectator benches, with Madison whimpering in his arms. He proceeds to get the stupid skates off and put her boots back on. He whispers to her reassuringly that they’re going to find her parents soon and Uncle Rodney is going to be back with something to make it better and please, please don’t cry like this.

Rodney returns with a bag of ice for her lip and a blue snow-cone for good measure. She climbs from John to Rodney, snuggles down in his lap and takes the snow-cone, holding it against her bleeding lip and eating it at the same time. She’s sniffling but the tears are gone.

He and Rodney share a long moment of post-adrenaline-rush astonishment, and then some more guilt.

Rodney’s trying to wipe up some melted snow-cone from Madison’s coat with a napkin. He holds her with no awkwardness at all, like he’s perfectly at ease to have her there in his lap, sticky snow-cone and all. “We suck. Let’s never have kids,” he says.

“Okay.” John rests his head in his hands and doesn’t even register that Rodney just used the words “we” and “kids” in the same sentence.

\---

The response from Jeanie and Caleb to Madison’s split lip is a long hug for their daughter and then questions about how it happened, which she explains in detail with great excitement. John and Rodney wait for anger but receive nothing more than conciliatory smiles and words of thanks for obviously taking care of it - and how about pizza for dinner? John feels as if they’ve just dodged a Wraith Dart.

When they arrive home a black sedan is parked on the curb opposite the Miller house. A familiar figure leaning against it in civilian clothes, hands stuffed in the pockets of his leather coat.

John tenses in anticipation of the fight that’s sure to come. Jeanie and Caleb exchange worried looks as Rodney urges them to go inside. He follows John as he crosses the street to meet Lt. Col. Mitchell.

“Family outing?” Mitchell smiles. John tries not to hate him because he really is a cool guy and obviously drew the short straw to come out here and gather him up with as little fuss as possible.

“Winter fair,” John answers, stuffing his hands into the pockets of his own jacket.

Mitchell nods and glances at Rodney then back to John. “We know why I’m here. I have to ask you to come back with me.” He fixes his eyes on John.

John gives him a fake smile. “Well, I have to tell you I’m not going back. Not right now.”

Mitchell tilts his head and studies him. “John, I can understand you’re still pissed about that nuke. You were following orders and we all know that. Now if you need more time to deal with it, General Landry has agreed to let this slide and give you the leave. But we need you back at the SGC.”

“Funny. They don’t act like they need him,” Rodney butts in.

“Rodney,” John warns, giving him a glare and silently asking that he not get involved.

Mitchell sags back against the car, crosses his arms on his chest and appears a little annoyed that Rodney is here for this. “If it hasn’t been shown, it’s because he does stupid crap like running off without authorization and generally giving the impression he’s not stable.” His blue eyes fix on John again. “Which is why you’re getting the simple missions or just being moved around the compound for classes and shooting practice. They’re trying to give you a break and wean you in, can’t you see that?”

John’s still a little rattled from the whole ice rink disaster and now he’s having to deal with this. What little control over his temper he had left is quickly burning away, “I don’t need weaning! I was the Commanding Officer of a military expedition in another _galaxy_ for 4 years! Now I’m handed 3 mediocre, very green, soldiers and told to go camp out on some safe planets and teach them to shoot! I had a team, Mitchell, and it was ripped away from me! I think you can imagine what that must be like. Of course I’m going to cling to what’s left of it!”

John’s invaded the other man’s personal space and Mitchell’s hand is on his chest suddenly, urging him to take a step back. He shouldn’t be attacking Mitchell like this, if anyone knows what it’s like to struggle and hold fast to your team, it’s him.

“Hey,” Jeanie interrupts. John flinches at her voice. He’d missed her approach.

“Ma’am.” Mitchell ducks his head to her and holds out a hand. “Cameron Mitchell.”

She takes his hand and John introduces her. “This is Jeanie, Rodney’s sister.”

“You know, you all could come inside and have pizza,” she offers hesitantly and then continues more confidently as they stare at her in bewilderment. “Or you could go some place else and… do whatever it is you do. But this,” she gestures to their tight circle and tense postures, “is making my husband nervous and he’s really a pacifist so… you know, maybe not so much with the arguing and stuff.” She smiles and heads back towards the house with a swish of skirts, pulling Rodney along with her.

John and Cameron stare as she and Rodney disappear back inside and the door closes.

“Pacifists rock,” Mitchell declares and John snorts with a laugh but agrees. “So, just give me the word, Colonel. Staying or going?”

John rubs the back of his neck, lifts his head and stares up into the icy blue sky. How can he explain to Mitchell that he wants very much to return to the familiar world of army green, dangerous missions and loud explosions but something else is nagging at him to stop tempting death? Then again, where is the excitement in life if there’s no danger any more?

“I’m staying for now, but tell General Landry I’ll be back after Christmas… if he hasn’t decided to call the MPs on me by then.”

Cameron smiles and gives him a quick salute. “Good choice, Sir.”

\---

“You’re going back?” Rodney frowns at him. They’re at the table in the dining room, waiting for pizza to be delivered. Caleb and Jeanie are looking at pictures of Madison with Santa Claus, deciding which ones to send to which relatives.

“After Christmas, yes, why are you surprised by this?”

Rodney stutters the beginning of a response then stops. “I just thought you were done with it.”

“Rodney, I’m a few years from retirement.”

He’s nodding his head and rolling his eyes. “Yes, yes, retirement. It doesn’t really mean much when you’re dead, does it?”

“What?”

“Dead, John. Because that useless group they call your team can’t even shoot straight.”

“You can’t shoot straight.”

“Ah!” he holds up a finger in challenge, “but I can rig really huge bombs and blow things up!”

“Rodney, I’m not going to be killed just because you aren’t there anymore to blow up the monsters before they get to me.”

“No, you probably won’t.” His eyes are looking everywhere but at John. “Just some stray bullet from friendly fire or maybe you’ll just fall into an abandoned mine and get buried alive or who knows… who knows what could happen.” He focuses on John then and his eyes are liquid bright under his perfect lashes.

Before John can think of a coherent answer Rodney is up and out of the room, mumbling something about going out to get ice cream for after dinner.

John feels like he’s been hit by a car more than once today and he’s emotionally exhausted. Analyzing feelings is just not his thing.

Caleb and Jeanie are smiling at him. He doesn’t want to know why, but it’s kind of a conversational obligation that he ask. “Okay, go ahead and tell me why you’re smiling.”

“She just thinks you’re cute,” Caleb teases. “I’m going to see what Maddy is up to.”

He’s alone with Jeanie and suddenly wishing he’d taken up Cameron’s offer to return to the SGC today. “Okay, you _need_ to open your eyes and see what’s happening here.” Jeanie leans a bit into the table, forcing John to look her in the eye. “I’ve never seen my brother act the way he has been these past days.”

“Act like what?” John rubs his hands over his face and sighs heavily.

 

“Like he’s human.” She’s very serious, not a hint of teasing in her entire demeanor.

John feels flustered and trapped. He needs a drink, a really strong one. “I don’t know what I’m doing.”

“I’ve noticed that. Look, I’m a genius and I’m female so I’m going to explain it to you.” She moves to a seat next to him and places a warm hand on his arm. “You and Mer are perfect together. Stop having this mid-life crisis and get on with it.”

John shakes his head. He’s not having this conversation with Rodney’s sister, because they’ve only just admitted there was a relationship to each other, to discuss it with anyone else is like taking it to another level. He’s already gone too far too fast.

“You know, Jeanie… I’m not very good with this whole discussing relationships thing. So…” He hopes she’ll get the hint and lay off if he gives her his uncomfortable look.

 

Unfortunately it has the opposite effect and her fingers dig into his arm with an impressive strength. “No, you _have_ to listen! I don’t care how uncomfortable you are with this, Mr. Soldier Boy.” He narrows his eyes at that but she’s got a fierce look to her that tells him to be quiet and let her speak. He’s seen that look on Teyla and Elizabeth before.

So he stills himself and waits for her to go on.

“You and my brother have been through so much together. Things I don’t know and can’t even imagine. Now this terrible thing happened and you’ve both lost something you loved. But you still have one another and that’s what’s important, John. Even _he_ knows that and believe me that’s a miraculous thing.” They stare at one another. The refrigerator hums to life and in the living room the television news murmurs under the voice of Madison chattering on to Caleb.

“Don’t _lose_ him. You do one thing to upset him and he will turn and run so fast - you won’t see him for years.” She’s digging into his arm now and John winces. She lets go. “Just… stop thinking there are better things out there to find when you already have _everything_ right there in front of you. God! I don’t know why men do that!” She’s staring at him with her head tilted, like she thinks he’s going to explain to her why men do that.

He continues to sit still and feels a bit like he’s next to a bomb; if he clips the wrong wire it will explode. Should he speak now or does she have more to put out there?

She pets his hair and kisses his temple, which he allows because she’s emotional and he’s too dumbstruck to object. The pizza arrives and a few minutes later his “everything” walks in the door with ice cream.

\---

The following days are a blur of activity in the Miller home. Relatives and friends drop by for dinner and gift exchanges. John and Rodney go on a small shopping spree and it turns out navigating Christmas traffic and crowds is almost worse than trying to get out of a Hive Ship alive. At one point they are escorted from a toy store because Rodney gets in a heated tug-of-war over the last of a particularly popular stuffed toy dog from Japan that interacts with its “owner”.

“She specifically asked me for that,” Rodney says angrily as they walk away from the store.

“Madison?”

“No, Jeanie.” He’s really upset about this and John wants to make it better because lately Rodney being upset has this effect on him.

“You can build her one,” John consoles.

“Hmm, yes I could, but I think you should go get it for me.”

“What?” He stares at Rodney.

“You heard me. I want it. You’re brave and resourceful. Go get it off that woman for me.”

John blinks. It’s a challenge. Rodney wants him to prove something. “You want me to steal a toy from a woman who probably intends to give it to her own child for Christmas? What kind of spirit of the season is that, Rodney?”

Rodney scoffs. “Fuck Christmas. I want that toy and you used to kill space aliens, fly nuclear warheads into enemy ships and dive down to the bottom of oceans to save me from man-eating whales. Go. Get. The. Toy. Lt. Colonel Sheppard.” His arms are crossed on his chest, blue eyes boring into John in demanding challenge. It’s surprisingly hot.

John’s heart begins to race a little. He narrows his eyes over at the woman who is with her husband now, sitting in the food court. The bag with the toy in it is at her feet. He scopes the exits and looks back to Rodney whose eyes are stern and glued to him. He can see the determination there too, the need to share something a little bit dangerous and experience that rush again.

 

In the end he distracts the woman and her husband by knocking over a nearby table and disrupting another family. While the couples’ heads are turned to see the action, he makes a grab for the toy bag and flies for the exit with Rodney at his heels. They’re already out the door by time security is alerted. Somehow they make it to Caleb and Jeanie’s mini-van on the other side of the parking lot and are inside with doors locked before John fully admits to himself that he just committed theft simply on a dare from Rodney.

He feels not an ounce of guilt however, because Rodney is grinning at him like a fool with some mixture of adoration in his eyes and John knows he would do it again just to see that. They get a room at an expensive hotel nearby where they spend the rest of the day having lots of really great sex. Which ends in Rodney slowly and methodically topping, something John has not allowed until now.

It freaks him out when it’s all over and Rodney’s passed out on the other side of the bed. It has nothing to do with being the last piece to complete his gay sex experience. It’s more to do with letting another person have complete control over him like that; allowing the overwhelming emotion for another human being to consume him so thoroughly that he forgets he’s an individual with a life that exists outside of this room. The fact that it’s _Rodney_ who has managed to bring him to this place just ads another layer to his ‘things to freak about’ list.

He gets out of the bed, showers quickly and pulls on his jeans. His shirt is thrown over a chair with Rodney’s coat. He puts it on and falls into the plush leather of the chair before getting it buttoned up. He just stares at the bed and a sleeping Rodney for many long minutes, fighting an overwhelming urge to flee. He could fly back to the SGC now and beg for an off world mission that would last months.

A chirping ring comes from Rodney’s coat. John uses this as an excuse to distract himself from his current path to melt-down, digs out the little cell and looks at the caller ID. Elizabeth. He scowls at the chirping phone and debates waking Rodney for it. He opens the phone and answers. “Elizabeth?”

“… John?”

“Yeah, it’s me. Are you okay? What’s wrong?”

“… Nothing is wrong. Other than you’re not where you’re supposed to be and some angry officers from SGC showed up at my door looking for you a few days ago.”

He bites his lip and considers his next words. “Oh, that,” he mumbles.

“Yeah… that.” Elizabeth sounds just as thrilled. “They know where you are now. I’m sorry I couldn’t lie for you, John.”

“No, that’s fine. They’ve already been and gone, don’t worry about it.”

“John, are you sure you’re all right? That message you left…?”

Shit, the message! “Uh… You didn’t play that for them, right?”

“Of course not! But John, you sounded pretty stressed.”

“I’m fine, Elizabeth.”

“And Rodney…? I thought I dialed his number.” The question has an obvious double-edged meaning to it. John glances at Rodney, buried in tangled sheets and scattered pillows.

“Rodney’s sleeping.”

She makes no response for a long moment but he can hear her sigh. He changes the topic. “So, you’re suddenly calling Rodney because… ?”

There’s an intake of breath on her side. “I was just calling to ask him how you are actually.”

 

“I’m fine.”

“And sleeping with Rodney.”

“Well… he’s really good at the whole sex thing. You wouldn’t think that, would you?”

“…”

It’s so easy to fluster Elizabeth but for some reason not as much fun as it is to fluster Rodney.

“Sorry.”

“John, this is not that unusual, really. When people are in high stress conditions together for long periods of time they – “

“Elizabeth, it’s got nothing to do with Atlantis any more. It’s gone so far past that.”

“So, you have feelings for him.”

John winces a bit but otherwise is proud of himself for not squirming; not that she’s here to see it. “Okay, I suppose we can say that, yeah.”

“And he… feels the same?”

Why is she asking this? Maybe she’s had a sudden attack of conscience for not calling them back for so long. Or she’s just generally fascinated that her head of military operations and her lead scientist are screwing.

“John?”

He sighs heavily and considers that last overly passionate bit of sex they just had and says, “I’m going out on a limb and saying yes to that one. And before we go any further with this conversation… Rodney wants to talk to you.”

 

“Oh – Uh, John –“ Before she can object, he’s up and over on the bed, roughly shaking Rodney.

An interesting thing about Rodney is that he’s fairly quick to wake up. It doesn’t take a lot of effort to bring him out of dreamland. Perhaps a result of the constant need to be instantly alert while in the Pegasus galaxy. “Elizabeth, for you.” He holds out the phone and Rodney blinks up at him then grabs for it.

“Elizabeth?! Where the hell have you been?!” He snarls into the phone and sits up, so as to have more room to wave his hands around wildly. He lectures her on phone etiquette. The whole conversation sounds pretty one-sided and John feels only a little bit sorry for her.

When they return that evening there are Christmas lights up on the house and they’ve missed dinner.  
\---

On Christmas day the presents under the tree are piled so high they spill out into the center of the room in bright bows and shiny wrapping paper. Approximately three-quarters of them are for Madison. Caleb and Jeanie seem to have some parental reservations about their daughter receiving so much crap but John and Rodney went insane at the Toys ‘R’ Us. To be honest, a good portion of them are also from Caleb’s family and a few relatives from the McKay side that John hasn’t met.

It takes Madison just fifteen minutes to get through the unwrapping of four presents and then she’s officially done with Christmas and doesn’t want to open any more. John finds this incredibly amusing. Jeanie and Rodney keep urging her to open more and Caleb just smiles proudly, because obviously his daughter has inherited some of his anti-consumerist traits.

It’s his last night before the flight back to Cheyenne Mountain the following day and John’s having a minor conflict of emotions about this. On the one hand he’s anxious to be back in uniform, on the other he’s sick at the thought of leaving the comfort of this home.

After dark he and Rodney take a walk around the neighborhood. The air smells of smoke from wood burning in fireplaces and occasionally sounds of satiated families drift from the houses. Small glittering and colorful lights decorate the homes they pass and a dusting of snow is drifting down. John stops a few houses before they get back to Caleb and Jeanie’s. He looks up into the sky, tries to fathom the millions of flakes falling from the darkness above.

“Jeanie and I used to try and catch the snow on frozen glass and identify all the different crystal formations,” Rodney says as he watches John. “Then Dad would convince us that the ‘no two flakes are the same’ theory was completely false and we would waste entire days trying to find matching snow flakes.”

John smiles; it’s rare that Rodney shares anything about his father. Actually, neither of them ever really talk about their fathers and John wonders what the story is there and why he hasn’t used any of his time this past week to grill Jeanie on the subject.

The silence between them is comfortable yet not. He’s leaving tomorrow and this should not be difficult, yet he feels like he did when they were told to get out of Atlantis.

Rodney looks a little cold but hasn’t said a word about it. John memorizes this moment, because he can tell it’s one that he will need in years to come. He takes in the soft brown suede of Rodney’s coat, the snow that settles on his shoulders and hair, the dark fringe of his lashes and the ghost of breath that melts into the air as he returns John’s gaze.

“I love you,” John whispers just under his breath. He’s never said those words to another person and so completely meant them.

A soft, self-satisfied grin crosses Rodney’s face. “Hmm, of course you do.” But it’s not his usual pretentious tone. It’s more like an _‘I always knew this and you’re slow but I love you also’_ tone.

“Don’t go back,” Rodney stuffs his hands in his pockets and takes one step closer to him, radiating intensity.

John looks up at the falling snow again then around them at the warm houses with cheerful lights. A lone car crawls down the road, turning at the end of the block. Rodney is waiting for a response with unusual patience. “Don’t you think there’s more out there? How could three years in Atlantis have been everything?”

Rodney’s rolling his eyes and giving him an amused look which borders on frustration at John’s obvious lower intelligence. “You’re telling me _this_ ,” he gestures between them, “isn’t worth staying for? Now it took me a little over four years to figure it out, but I’m pretty sure this thing we’ve been doing for the past week or so is what life is actually about.”

John senses Jeanie in those words. But it’s something he’s been struggling with for the last few days and Rodney saying it out in the open like this only makes it more solid. He’s teetering on the edge of indecision. The idea of flipping a coin on this one seems too casual and he’s afraid he’ll land on the wrong side… whichever side that may be.

With timing that’s both terrible and perfect, Madison is suddenly standing at the end of the Miller house driveway, wrapped too tightly in a coat, mittens, scarf and hat. She spots them down the block and yells at the top of her lungs something about getting back inside before mom eats all the brownies and don’t they know it’s snowing and too cold out here? She then goes into a particularly detailed diatribe about snow flakes, Princess Jasmine and Bambi. Which John is hard pressed to understand the link as he and Rodney laugh at her little mittened hands waving in the air to accentuate her words. A few people are sticking heads outside to see what the racket is.

John and Rodney return to the house and take her inside, where they watch Aladdin and force her to open a few more presents before bed.

The next morning he calls General Landry and informs him he wants reassignment to Area 51 or he’ll resign. Because nothing back at the SGC, no alien species, all-powerful religious zealots or unending dangerous missions can compare to what he’s discovered here in the last week alone and this time around, he’s not going to abandon it.

/end


End file.
